424 Miscellaneous. 



The Malarmat presents the remarkable peculiarity of possessing 

 at the same time barbels like those of Midlus barhatus, and free rays 

 identical with those of the Gurnards. The thick cuirass which 

 covers the body of these fishes seems to justify the development of 

 these organs of taste and touch and their grouping in different 

 regions. The barbels of the Malarmat, which are sometimes 

 arranged in tufts, sometimes isolated, fringe the lower jaw to the 

 number of ten or twelve ; two of them always attain very large 

 dimensions, and present secondary ramifications. All these barbels 

 are furnished with cyathiform bodies of no great size and formed 

 by the union of two sorts of cells : some of these, grouped in the 

 centre and projecting slightly at the surface of the barbel, are like 

 fibres furnished with a voluminous nucleus ; the others, arranged at 

 the periphery, are cylindrical . and terminate iii a fiat surface. 

 These little organs not only exist on the barbels, but they are also 

 difi'used in great numbers in the mucous membrane that lines the 

 buccal cavity; they are arranged in rows in the pharynx; and 

 three or four of them occupy each of the little papillse which project 

 from the rudimentary tongue. They are always seated in the epi- 

 dermis ; but their structure is difficult to make out, on account of 

 their small dimensions. 



The cyathiform bodies of Mullus harbatus are much more volu- 

 minous; hence we have been able to make a more complete inves- 

 tigation of them. They are like those described by F. E. Schulze 

 in the ]iarbel and the Tench. Each corpuscle is situated in a point of 

 the epidermis corresponding to a papilla of the dermis ; it is clearly 

 marked off from the cells which surround it by the dark coloration 

 which it acquires after the action of osmic acid and by the aspect of 

 its constituent elements. Each of them is formed of cells belonging 

 to two types, between which we observe all transitional forms : 

 some are cylindrical and situated at the periphery ; the others, 

 grouped at the centre of the ovoid body, terminate in a conical pro- 

 longation, the points of which, generally masked by mucus, appear 

 lees distinctly than in the Malarmat. All these elements are fur- 

 nished with a voluminous nucleus ; and their protoplasm is strongly 

 coloured by osmium. At the base of each corpuscle we see a small 

 granular mass, formed by the varicose basal prolongations of the 

 cells of the cyathiform bodies : it is in this granular mass that the 

 cylinder-axes of the nervous fibres disappear ; and from it the cells 

 of the corpuscles emerge. Mullus barhatus possesses ovoid bodies, 

 identical with those which we have just described, in the mucous 

 membrane of the tongue and pharynx. 



In the Gurnards we have found cyathiform corpuscles upon the 

 tongue. It is probable that they exist in the buccal mucous mem- 

 brane of most fishes. 



From the facts just indicated we must conclude that, among the 

 nervous terminations in fishes described by M. Joubert as organs of 

 touch, we must distinguish those which possess cyathiform bodies 

 from those which are destitute of them. What functions are we to 

 attribute to them ? From the investigations of F. E. Schulze, F. 



